A Feast for the Senses

There was so much meat that it couldn't all fit in one pot to stew, so Yu Sheng prepared it into several different dishes. As the saying went: raw the first time, cooked the second, scallions, ginger, and cooking wine the third—in early civilization, ancient humans confronting nature's bounties had probably explored and experimented in much the same fashion. Humming a tune, Yu Sheng chopped the largest portion of meat into hearty chunks, blanched them in boiling water to skim off the scum, and laid out star anise, fennel, cloves, cinnamon, and other stewing spices in a clay pot. Once he added the meat, he poured in plenty of fresh water, salt, soy sauce, and cooking wine to eliminate the gaminess, setting it on the stove to simmer slowly. While the stew was simmering, he took the remaining meat and stir-fried two separate plates—one with chili peppers and the other with garlic scapes. Giving it a quick taste, he found it savory and delicious, cooked to perfection, the slices tender and smooth. He couldn't quite pinpoint what kind of meat the flavor resembled, but texture-wise, it was remarkably close to exceptionally tender beef. As for the leftovers, he planned to finish this meal first to confirm there were no issues before curing them into bacon for storage... or maybe he could salt and cure them, then dehydrate them in an air fryer to make salted jerky? He had never tried that before, so he wasn't sure if it would work... All kinds of thoughts swirled in Yu Sheng's mind. He felt like a daring scientist exploring possibilities in a realm where no man had set foot before. And so he explored in the kitchen for nearly two hours. After quite a bustle, he finally opened the door and carried the cups, plates, bowls, and the clay pot of stew out to the dining table one trip after another. From the oil painting, Irene watched Yu Sheng bustle about with a look of pure horror. Her face showed a contradictory blend of two diametrically opposed expressions: "Whatever, I'm too tired, let him do what he wants," and "No way, you damn well can't do that!" After quite some time, she finally couldn't hold back any longer. "You're not actually planning to eat that, are you? That stuff came from a foreign domain! Don't go poisoning yourself to death!" Yu Sheng glanced up at Irene. "What if I told you I already ate it twice over 'there'?" The conflicted look on Irene's face vanished instantly, leaving only sheer horror. "...Huh?!" "See, I'm still alive and kicking, so it should be fine. It took a lot of effort to bring back these spoils, so throwing them out would be a total waste," Yu Sheng said matter-of-factly. "You know about hunting? This is my quarry. Sooner or later, I'm bringing that entire thing back to teach it who sits at the top of the food chain!" Irene didn't answer. Seeing the young doll lady looking utterly flabbergasted, Yu Sheng pressed further out of curiosity, "Though speaking of which, has really no one ever 'tried' tasting an 'entity' from a foreign domain? Didn't you say they come in all shapes and forms? Surely there's no shortage of things that look edible in there." "Who would ever try that?!" Irene exclaimed in exasperation. "No one can tell what bizarre properties those things carry! Being poisonous would be the best-case scenario! Who in their right mind shoves that into their mouth? And you even ate it twi... Did you really eat it twice?" "Yep. Though the first two times were sashimi. The situation was pretty urgent back then, so there wasn't time to cook it. The kind of emergency where if I didn't eat that bite right then, I wouldn't live to eat anything else." Yu Sheng spoke nonchalantly as he sat down across from Irene, casually picking up a slice of meat with his chopsticks and popping it into his mouth, eating with great relish. Dumbfounded, Irene asked, "Then... then how did you react after eating it?" "I died right after," Yu Sheng answered with utter sincerity. "Then why would you still—" Irene blurted out instinctively before realizing something was off. But knowing nothing about Yu Sheng coming back from the dead, she assumed he was just teasing her and glared in annoyance. "I'm being serious here!" Yu Sheng grinned, chuckling aloud at the doll's exasperated huff inside the oil painting. He realized he was actually starting to enjoy bickering with this doll. In any case, it wasn't like she could leap out of the painting and headbutt him. He still didn't explain coming back from the dead to Irene. For one thing, Irene currently couldn't perceive his dying at all, so explaining it would just sound like he was pulling her leg. For another, he had too many conjectures about the changes happening to his body waiting to be confirmed; he preferred to figure a few more things out before discussing them with her. Unaware of the myriad thoughts swirling behind Yu Sheng's teasing grin, Irene simply couldn't help glancing once more at the sumptuous spread on the table. Her gaze then drifted blankly to Yu Sheng's chewing. It did look... quite appetizing. And once cooked, its color was no different from ordinary meat, showing none of its initial bizarre appearance. "...Is it good?" Unable to hold back any longer, the doll in the painting asked with feigned nonchalance. Yu Sheng broke into laughter at once. As if anticipating this all along, he picked up the empty bowl and plate he had set on the table earlier, dished out a portion of food and meat broth for Irene, and placed them in front of the oil painting. "I didn't say I wanted any..." Irene mumbled. "You can't actually eat it anyway, so you don't need to care where the ingredients came from, right?" Yu Sheng remarked casually. Irene thought about it and found that reasonable. "Oh... yeah?" And so she relaxed once more, sitting in front of the bowl and chopsticks Yu Sheng had arranged like a portrait of the departed fondly smiling over a memorial offering. Halfway through the meal, their conversation inevitably drifted back to their earlier discussion about "professionals." "Actually, there's another possibility for why no one has come looking for you yet," Irene said, hugging her teddy bear as she sat near the edge of the picture frame, thinking aloud. "Some organization or official authorities might have already noticed something wrong here, but based on professional judgment, they decided they can't act immediately, or they haven't precisely pinpointed the foreign domain's junction and relevant intel yet, so they could only set up surveillance for now." "Surveillance?" "Yeah! For all we know, there might be a bunch of plainclothes agents staking out your house right now. After all, you made it back from a foreign domain on your own before anyone could rescue you. Whether through strength or luck, the people handling these incidents didn't have time to intervene, which probably means they didn't have time to pinpoint you either, so naturally they could only set up surveillance around the area first... Over the next couple of days, you can keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces nearby. They might be plainclothes operatives, plainclothes detectives, or plainclothes investigators staking the place out. It's just something to watch out for in passing—it won't get in the way of checking utility poles for flyers..." Ignoring her remark about "flyers on utility poles," Yu Sheng glanced out the window. Easy for Irene to say—keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces! How was he supposed to know who was unfamiliar? He had only lived here for two months, spent almost the entire first month holed up at home, and was slightly face-blind to boot. To his eyes, half the people around here were unfamiliar faces! "Do you think the guy selling jianbing at the intersection looks like an undercover agent?" After staring suspiciously out the window for quite a while, Yu Sheng whispered to Irene. "How should I know? I can't see him." "Oh, right, forgot," Yu Sheng realized. He quickly got up, grabbed Irene's picture frame, and placed it by the nearby window facing outside. "Right over there, that one..." "Nope." "You're that sure?" "Well, duh! Fifty seconds to whip up a jianbing with sausage and egg! If he were an undercover cop, he probably couldn't even brush on the oil properly in fifty seconds." "...Fair point. What about the guy applying screen protectors next to him?" "Nope, hands are too nimble." "Oh... Hey, what about—" "Stop looking. Being paranoid won't do you any good, and if someone's really a professional, you definitely wouldn't be able to spot them anyway," Irene cut him off. "Instead of wasting time guessing, you'd be better off walking around outside more often over the next couple of days. You've been tainted with the aura of a foreign domain—any professional who gets close to you will spot it in a heartbeat." "...Yeah, that's true." Yu Sheng sighed. Unable to refute her, he turned back to clear the dishes from the dining table. The moment he turned around, Irene shrieked behind him, "Put me back first! I'm still leaning against the window!" Yu Sheng sighed helplessly again, grumbling as he turned back to lift Irene off the windowsill, "Tsk, what a hassle." "Then hurry up and get me a body so I can run around on my own," Irene said in the oil painting, lifting her eyelids to look at Yu Sheng as he set her back onto the dining table. She quickly added, "I just feel like we've gotten a bit closer today, which is why I'm asking again..." Hearing this, the corner of Yu Sheng's mouth twitched. When Irene had discussed an "escape plan" with him earlier, she had indeed said they weren't familiar enough with each other yet, so cooperating on that front would have to wait until they got closer. But he hadn't expected the doll's criteria for "familiar" to be so flexible. "We'll talk later, we'll talk later. My head is full of things to handle right now—at least wait until I'm done with this busy stretch..." "Fine, okay then." Irene was easy enough to placate; after only a brief moment of disappointment, she nodded. "Just don't forget!" She stayed quiet for barely a moment. Watching Yu Sheng clear the dishes from the table, she began chattering again. "What are you doing next? Heading out to look for utility poles?" "Are you ever going to drop the utility poles?" Yu Sheng glared at her. "I'm going upstairs to sleep! After everything that happened, I'm dying of exhaustion!" Irene let out an "oh," then pointed toward the television opposite the picture frame. "Then could you fix the TV first? The signal cut out all of a sudden, and there's nothing to watch..." Yu Sheng: "..." After a moment, he let out an exceptionally heavy sigh. After spending such a brief time with this chatterbox, he was already starting to miss his carefree, blissful bachelor life.